Sonia Tastes Hawaii

Arroz con Coco - Coconut Rice Pudding

I love arroz con leche!....It has to be one of my all time favorite comfort foods........... 

In fact, one of the first things I ever made in the kitchen by myself  was rice pudding.  The original recipe I have used for many years comes from a cookbook called Cocina Criolla by Nitza Villapol.  Nitza was the Cuban version of Julia Child, back in the 40's and 50's, many years before Julia became an icon in our kitchens.  This old classic cookbook was usually given to most 'damiselas' (young ladies) when they  married.  I got my first copy as a birthday gift from Mama Benita, my Cuban grandmother for my 14th birthday.  It was my first cookbook.

As I said in my last entry, the first recipe that I wanted to try from the new The Three Guys from Miami Celebrate Cuban Cookbook was the very first one in their book, the Coconut Rice Pudding.  We loved it!

The guys banter among themselves:

Glenn: The traditional rice pudding of Cuba, arroz con leche, is a year-round favorite.  Far from a  gourmet dish, it's a true Cuban "soul" food.  Every Cuban grew up eating this dish regularly.

Jorge: Arroz con leche is a geat way to welcome someone to your home.  It's not fancy, but serving it to your guests is like saying, "you're part of the family"

Raul: And who can resist something so sweet, fragrant, and soul satisfying?

Jorge: Are you sure you're not talking about Glenn's first girlfriend?

Glenn: As sweet as my first girlfriend may have been, this recipe takes the dream of the perfect arroz con leche one step further

Jorge: Yes, this one features the great tropical flavor of coconut, a taste that takes the ordinary to those heights of soul-satisfying goodness to which Cuban food fanatics can only dream.

Sonia quips: And that is another reason that Cuban and Hawaiian foods can be so similar.  Cubans love rice and eat it several times a day.  So do people in Hawaii.  Cubans love coconuts.  So do Hawaiians.  Cubans love sweets and guess what?........so do Hawaiians!            

The taste reminds me a little bit of a combination of rice pudding and Hawaii's beloved Haupia, the traditional coconut pudding many visitors get to taste when attending a Lu'au. Anthony suggested serving it with a drizzle of liliko'i syrup (passion fruit) on top.  I will try it next time.  But either way....it is a very satisfying dessert.   Comfort food at its finest!

Arroz con Coco – Coconut Rice Pudding

2 cups uncooked white rice

4 cups water

1 lemon peel

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups unsweetened coconut milk

3 cups whole milk

1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1 cup cane sugar

2 cups heavy (whipping) cream

Place the rice, water, lemon peel, cinnamon sticks and salt in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and cook uncovered until rice is soft, about 25 minutes or so.  Remove the lemon peel and cinnamon sticks.

Add the coconut milk, whole milk, shredded coconut and sugar to the rice and cook over very low heat, uncovered, stirring frequently, until thick, about 1 hour.  At this point the rice should be very sticky with most of the milk absorbed.

TIP: Keeping the heat low will reduce the number of stirrings.

Now, gently stir in the heavy cream and continue cooking over low heat, just long enough to warm the rice completely.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve immediately.

Serves 6 to 8

REVIEW: The Three Guys from Miami Celebrate Cuban

Can there be anything wrong with a cookbook that starts with desserts up front.......?  Definitely not in my opinion, especially when the first recipe is for Coconut Rice Pudding! 

This is the second cookbook by this winsome trio and in my opinion also destined to join their first one on the best seller list!

In their own inimitable bantering style, Glenn Lindgreen, Raul Musibay and Jorge Castillo  deal in serious business.....seriously good food business, I mean...   Whether you are familiar with Cuban food  or not, the book is a promise that 'if you read it, and, of course, cook from it, they will come...to your table', to paraphrase a well known movie's most famous line.

The format is easy to read and follow and none of the recipes are very complicated... You will find a few comments on the margins by Glenn, Raul and Jorge, sometimes explaining a recipe, a name, an ingredient, a cooking term or even making fun of themselves.

The beautiful color photos throughout the book make your mouth water in anticipation and you will find little bits of information scattered among the pages explaining certain customs, holiday traditions and everyday way of life in the Cuba we used to know.

I hope you enjoy this cookbook as much as I have.....and yes, the first recipe I will make from this cookbook is the Coconut Rice Pudding!

Scallop Ceviche in Avocado Bowl

In Hawaii, it is called poke (poh-kay), in Cuba, where I was born, we call it by the Spanish name of ceviche.   

According to chef Sam Choy, our most recognized ambassador of all things Hawaiian, ceviche or poke originated in Chile several hundreds of years ago and slowly made it's way to Europe with the returning Spaniards and to the Pacific Islands by migration, first to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pitcairn Island (of Captain Blight and Mutiny on the Bounty fame), then on to Tahiti, where their version, containing coconut milk, is known as Poisson Cru (or raw fish) and from there traveled throughout the South Pacific. 

With variations, taking into consideration locally available ingredients, it eventually traveled to Polynesia, where the people who later populated the Hawaiian Islands brought with them the tradition of poke in their canoe travels wherever they settled.

By combining ingredients from several recipes I have come up with my own version of this traditional dish. According to the lack of leftovers every time I prepare this dish, it seems everyone enjoys it and think it is 'ono', Hawaiian for delicious!

This is a good dish to serve as appetizers and best eaten just barely 4 hours after mixing with the "cooking" juices. If there is much left over, drain and use in a quick stir-fry by adding to a few vegetables and serve with rice. If left in the lime juice too long, the little scallops will just shrink and not be as pretty nor appetizing and turn to mush.

6 pounds bay scallops
16 limes, juiced
2 large Maui or other sweet onion,  chopped fine
12 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
3 Habanero peppers, chopped very fine
2 red bell peppers, chopped fine
5 bunches green onions, chopped small, including some green
1 medium bundle flatleaf parsley, chopped
1/4 bundle cilantro leaves, chopped (*)
Sea salt, rock salt, Hawaiian or Kosher salt to taste
3 Tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Wash and drain scallops, check thoroughly and discard any bits of shell. Place back in refrigerator until ready to mix with the rest of the ingredients. Juice the limes and reserve.

Chop the sweet onions and garlic cloves together in a food processor or blender, or very fine with a good, sharp knife. Check to make sure all pieces of onion are chopped very small. Finely chop the Habanero peppers, making sure to wear plastic gloves. Chop the red bell peppers, the green onions and some of the green tops. You can chop the parsley and cilantro together and mix well.

Mix the onion and garlic with the Habanero and red bell peppers, add the chopped green onions and the parsley-cilantro mix.  Add the scallops and lime juice.  Salt to taste.  Add sugar, just enough to cut the acidity a bit. 

For this presentation I used avocado halves.  The salad is a combination of two different 'spinachs' growing in the yard.  The one with the purple underside is Okinawan Spinach.  The second green leaf is the Dawn Dewa or Mollucan Spinach, credited with healthy cholesterol lowering properties.  Add a few grape tomatoes from the garden and a light dressing that does not compete with the taste of the ceviche.

You can cut the recipe by half or even fourths.  The quantitity of ingredients needs to suit your taste, so play around with them to come up with the combination you like the best.

When serving a large group of people, I serve it in a large clear acrylic shell shaped bowl or my old clay paella dish.  For small dinner parties I use either small shell shaped bowls to be placed around the table or as in this presentation using an avocado half as an 'edible' serving bowl.

(*) instead of cilantro I sometimes add green edible limu or seaweeds to give it crunch.

GARDEN TIP: You can save all of the veggie trimmings, peels, discards, etc.  Put them in the blender with water.  You might have to do it in batches if you have too much.  Give them a whirl in the blender and use it to water and feed around your vegetable garden plants.  By using the blender you make the pieces so tiny that they will not attract vermin.

Garden Journal - The First Week

We have started thinking about the new little garden as ‘our recycled garden’

As I mentioned before, the beds are enclosed in recycled wooden window slats; the bottoms covered with recycled newspapers; the mulch is recycled green waste; the tomato climbing screens are made from sections of an old dog pen; some of the pots we are placing around the garden area are being brought in from our front yard, including an old wheelbarrow where I had planted some herbs; and we will be using pieces of bamboo recycled from another area where we are thinning it to make plant supports.  The little paper cups being used to sprout some seedlings in the beds are some we couldn't use due to their being too small for the cup dispenser we already had....so they have been put to another use.

Bed #1 detail of dog pen screening on left - this is the tomatoes and basil bed - garlic cloves and garlic chives have also been planted here. (Click on each photo for larger versions)

We will be using some more sections of the old dog pen screening as supports for climbing beans and chayote squash but this will be done in a few weeks. In the meantime, we have been busy adding to what we already started.

Day 6 - Thursday, September 7, 2006

Would you believe there is already green coming up in bed #3 - the lettuces and greens and in Bed #8 the snap peas and bush beans?…. We just planted these on Day 3!

Bed #8 on right with the bush beans and snap peas already coming up!

On this day we picked up the plants we had reserved at the garden store plus added a few more to our stash.

Late afternoon Anthony started cleaning up the weeds and junk growing all around the already established banana plants. We have 4 Brazilian Dwarf bananas (2 of them are bearing racks of bananas and one is 'throwing out' a bloom!) and are surrounded by little banana keiki (baby volunteer plants) and we also have one Cuban Red banana which has been planted for 4 years and hasn’t done anything yet. Read an article I wrote about bananas and try the delicious banana bread pudding recipe

Day 7 - Friday, September 8, 2006

Bed # 6 - We planted 3 eggplants - the varieties are called Long Green Japanese, Round Green and Millionaire. We have no idea what color, shape or size is this last one, but the name sounded interesting!

In the same bed we planted two varieties of parsley - Italian and curly leaf. Later we will add something else low growing to this bed.

Bed #1 - We planted 2 Roma tomatoes and cuttings from grape and cherry tomatoes. I also planted 2 Italian basil and cuttings from an already established lemon basil located somewhere else in the yard.

Bed #7 on right - Anthony planted a zucchini and 2 red bell peppers.  We will be planting other low growing herbs here later.  You can see a bit of Bed #6 beyond this bed, where the Mexican tarragon, eggplants and parsleys have been planted

I planted several garlic chives and two heads of garlic cloves in different beds throughout the garden.

We also moved over one of the potted Hawaiian chile peppers to this garden site and planted some spearmint in a clay container to give it room to grow without letting it take over in any of the other beds.

On left is the Hawaiian chile peppers in a pot and the pot of speamint sitting below, next to the spearmint you can see a small pot of varigated Cuban (sometimes also called Caribbean) oregano which will be divided and planted in the bare area right behind the chile pepper pot..  The long, scraggly green plants you see in the back to the left are the pineapple tops, waiting to be trimmed and planted in the new pineapple bed.

Spearmint is called Yerbabuena (good herb) in Spanish and it's a key ingredient for Cuban mojito drinks.  If no spearmint is available, regular mint can be substituted.

Classic Cuban Mojito

Sugar, lime juice, Spearmint (Yerbabuena), white rum, sparkling soda water and ice cubes.

Using a tall highball glass, crush a generous sprig of spearmint with the sugar and lime juice.  Add the rum, ice cubes and fill the glass with sparkling soda water.  Add a fresh sprig of spearmint as garnish.  Cool, refreshing and wonderful on a hot day!

Close-up detail of Hawaiian Chile Peppers on right

Day 8 - Saturday, September 9, 2006

A week today since we started the garden and already you can see progress and changes.

Bed #2 - Anthony planted carrots, beets and onions. These carrots are supposed to be short and stubby. This is the bed where I had planted a row of regular chives on Monday. Later on I had to trim them all down to about 1 inch above the soil line to give them a spurt of encouragement.

He also started a seedling tray with several varieties of seeds. These will be transplanted into the garden beds later on if they do ok.

I mentioned last week about offering the Surinam cherry keiki (seedlings) from under our tree at the Freecycle site and had a few people come and dig up quite a bit of them. It’s always fun to get to meet other plant people. One person brought us three delicious avocados from her own trees…. I will share what I did with some of them next week!

I have posted a request for plantain keiki at FreecycleBigIsland….I hope someone can share with us!

After reading last week's blog entry one of our friends contacted me about how to find the FreecycleBigIsland group.  I have highlighted it above for those of you who live in Hawaii and for those everywhere else you can find a local group by clicking Freecycle.org

……….and that is how my garden grows today!

Garden Journal - Intro

I have always been fascinated with the concept of the “Victory Gardens” that were a mainstay in supplying fresh vegetables and fruit for the home front during both World Wars. The idea of growing food for our own use in a small scale in our own yard has always appealed to me.

Through the years, wherever we have lived, we have had little gardens and big gardens ….but have always had something edible growing in our yard.

The smallest garden was something similar to what the French call a ‘potager’ since I had no yard when living in a first floor condo in Miami, but had a sunny area outside my front door where I had a few herbs and tomatoes growing in large pots.

The largest garden was while living in South Carolina and my husband decided to plant a couple of acres in an area between his office and the plant we owned. The kids called it ‘the truck farm‘ and hated to help harvest the resulting ‘bounty’. Needless to say, we had more than enough to share with the employees, friends and neighbors and anyone with whom we were remotely acquainted!

Since moving to this property 4 and a half years ago, we have planted edibles here and there, but never had an area that was completely devoted to an edible garden….until now.

This past Labor Day weekend we decided it was time.

A few weeks ago the bottom sections of our living room windows were converted from rough, dark cedar wooden panels to clear glass jalousies. The wooden panels are approximately 4 feet long and about 6 inches wide. Loath to get rid of the now discarded wooden panels, we decided to use them in the garden as edges and borders for our beds.

My son Anthony has what I call ten green thumbs. One of his three university degrees is in tropical agriculture and we are now putting to good use whatever he learned at UH-Hilo

I hope you enjoy following our gardening adventures, even though in the beginning it might be a bit boring.

Day 1- Saturday, September 2, 2006

The perimeters of the garden are enclosed on the SW side by our cottage. The NW side is lined with several dwarf banana trees we planted when we first moved here. The NE side is bordered with a large palm, a Caribbean papaya and a Surinam cherry bush that has grown into a small tree.

The SE side is the walking path that ties the upper part of the property where our cottage sits with the car port and main house in the lower section. A large mango tree, another Surinam cherry, a small jaboticaba tree, a patch of yellow heliconia and a traveling palm draped with yellow passion fruit vines line up this last boundary.

Colin, the son of a friend of ours was contracted to bring two pickup loads of ripe compost available for the taking from the Hilo Transfer Station (aka da dump)

The garden area was mowed close to the ground and we mapped out the sites for the beds.

We built a large 8 x 4 bed for the tomatoes and basil and 7 beds that are 4x4 squares. Another area was heavily mulched for our new pineapple bed and we left the little fig where it was originally planted, since it finally decided to start producing fruit….it is now showing two figs!

Photo #1 - Anthony soaking the newspaper padding Bed #1 - (click on each photo for larger versions)

Since we decided it would be an organic garden, we did not use chemicals to get rid of weeds or grass inside the bed areas. Instead, we have been saving newspapers for a couple of months and lined the bottom inside of each bed with several thick layers of newspapers, then hosed them down to thoroughly soak them all the way through.

Colin filled each bed with as much mulch as they would hold and I went behind him with the hose to soak it down so that it would settle as much as possible.

Photo #2 - Colin spreading mulch

The use of mainly mulch in each bed will help with weed control. By planting each plant or seedling in pockets of soil carved out of the mulch, each bed is technically it’s own composting pile. The mixture of soil we are using is approximately equal amounts of organic dirt, pro-mix and garden soil.

After the seeds come up, we will side-dress with organic manure and afterwards side-dress again with soil since the original soil with which we started will have ideally decomposed somewhat. Later when our plants star producing and vegetables start to form, we will side-dress yet again with a weak manure mix or weak manure ‘tea’ to give it a good start-up kick.

Day 2 - Sunday, September 3, 2006

The mulch beds got another thorough soaking in the early morning. The trellis for the tomato beds were set up and beds #4 and #5 were planted.

Bed #4 - A rosemary plant in the center, 4 butternut squash already showing some fruit and a lemon thyme. Shortly I will plant some garlic cloves around to help control pests.

Bed #5 - Hawaiian Sugar Sweet #9A corn planted in bottomless paper cups. We also planted some Rubeckia daisy seeds for color. The bottomless little paper cups are placed in pockets in the mulch to which some of the planting soil mixture has been added. Fill the cup 3/4 with soil, add the seeds and cover with ¼ inch soil.

The purpose for using the paper cups (not waxed so they will eventually decompose into the soil) is to discourage slugs and cut worms from getting to the seedlings when they start sprouting.

Photo #3 -

Everything was given a good hosing with the mist setting on the hose.

Day 3- Monday, September 4, 2006

I trimmed the bottom portion of the Surinam cherry and to be able to weed and discovered hundreds of keiki (babies). I placed an offer on Freecycle big Island to share the seedlings and had a great response.

We planted beds #3 and #8 and moved some existing potted herbs from other areas of the yard to a permanent place in our new garden.

Bed #3 - two French tarragon plants. Batchelor Button seeds, mesclun mix, mizuna, lettuce mix and Okame (Oriental) spinach

Anthony leveled the mulch as much as possible and covered it with 1 inch of soil mix. He scattered the 4 different lettuce and greens seeds and topped them with ½ inch of the soil mix.

Bed #8 - Bush Beans and Snap Peas - two rows of each

Anthony dug 4 shallow trenches in the mulch and filled with 2 inches of soil. The seeds were planted at a depth of 1 inch and about 2 inches apart. The trenches were then covered with 1 inch of the soil.

All the beds were watered with the mister.

I also started on bed #2 by digging a trench along one edge, filling with soil and transplanting a few dozen small chive plants moved from another area in the yard. Along with the chives, I had a few pieces of marjoram, so I know that soon we will have some more marjoram scattered in this bed.

An old wheel barrow we had used as a planter was moved to the new garden area. The wheelbarrow contains more marjoram, a bit more chives, a lemon balm, a small rosemary and several lemon basil I was rooting.

Moved the Mexican tarragon to a corner of bed #6

Day 4 - Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Did no work in the garden except to water everything early in the morning. While running errands in Hilo we bought some Japanese egg plants, parsley, garlic chives, Roma tomatoes, zucchini plant and an Italian basil. The plants were left at the store with our name on them since we could not come straight back home and were reluctant to leave them in a hot car.

Day 5 - Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Raining off and on most of the day. A good nice soft rain which the garden is gratefully drinking up.Tomorrow we will pick up the plants left in town and will try to get them all in the ground.

……….and that is how my garden grows... today!